Baby Gods
by betawho
Summary: A new god is about to be born on the modern planet, Lora, but the god egg has been stolen from the temple. It is up to the Doctor and Donna to save the baby god, before it hatches.
1. Chapter 1

(Author's Note: This was written in an attempt to write an inexpensive alien planet story, using readily available props and locations, small cast [except for extras], and minimal CGI. I got tired of hearing alien planets cost too much. It is intended as a single 45 minute episode.)

* * *

Baby Gods

—

"I thought you were going take me to another planet." Donna looked around at the ordinary suburban street. The Doctor turned from locking the Tardis door.

"I did. Welcome to the planet Lora."

"But, this just looks like Earth, a little bit in the future. What year is it?"

"2048. By your calendar."

Donna looked around at the quiet suburban scene. It looked normal enough, though the houses were spaced farther apart than she was used to and they all had an ergonomic look, the corners rounded off like a new computer.

"Not much different."

"You'd be surprised."

"So, where is this family you're wanting to visit?"

—

Knock knock.

In the living room an athletic, ginger-haired man opened the door. "Doctor!"

"Padir! It's good to see you." The Doctor held out his hands and Padir pressed them between alternate palms, the local equivalent of a handshake.

"Miralee! Come see who's here!" The Doctor pressed hands with the attractive woman that entered from another room, obviously the kitchen, considering the tea towel she was holding.

"This is my friend, Donna." Donna held out her hands and had them pressed. "I was showing her the neighborhood and thought I'd drop in."

"It's wonderful to see you again, Doctor," Padir said. "I hope there's nothing wrong?"

"No, no. We were just..." The Doctor's eye was caught by a pedestal standing in pride of place in the living room. A domed, brass birdcage sat on top, with an egg inside, the size of an American football. The Doctor laid his hand on the cage studying the egg. He turned and looked up at Padir and Miralee, a huge grin on his face.

"Congratulations! Boy or girl?"

"Girl." Padir glowed with pride. "Jeson will have a little sister soon. It's fortunate you arrived today, Doctor. You're just in time for the blessing ceremony. A God has been born."


	2. Chapter 2

Outside, the Doctor and Donna followed Padir and his family as they joined the neighbors walking down the street.

"What did he mean, a God has been born? And are you telling me that all these people are born from eggs? But, they're human..."

"Not human, humanoid. And what's so strange about that? Humans are born from eggs."

"Well, yeah, but..." Her eyes widened. "That's gotta hurt."

"Nah. They start out small, the size of a hens egg, leathery. As they grow they get harder and more brittle. Eventually the baby grows big enough inside that his natural movements crack the shell. No trauma, at all."

They were walking down the center of the street with the families from all the other houses. All the various people were wearing white robes belted at the waist. Some of them obviously wearing them over their normal street clothes. Some of the children and teenagers were wearing jackets with logos and patches over their robes. They were all headed towards a temple, it's roof just visible over the roofs of the houses.

"And why don't they have cars?" She looked around, noting the streets and the driveways, even garages. But no cars. Even the sidewalks had grass growing over them. Everyone walked in the center of the road.

"They did have, until about 30 years ago. They were having the usual problems, pollution, dwindling fuel reserves, the population becoming sedentary and unhealthy. They tried everything. But nothing helped. Finally they set up a prayer vigil and asked the gods."

"They prayed about it?"

"Yep."

"And?"

"The gods said, 'Stop driving to work.'"

"You're kidding."

"Nope. It worked. Pollution waned, fuel reserves built back up, and people became more healthy. Mind you, it wasn't easy. They had to rework their entire infrastructure. Redesign their cities. And put in a massive mass transport system. Monorails mainly."

"That's ridiculous. Nobody's going to stop driving just because," she made quotation marks with her fingers, "God said so."

"You're forgetting, Donna. This isn't Earth. Theology isn't a matter for debate here. On Lora the gods are real."

—

They entered the temple complex and joined the crowds milling around the courtyard. The temple itself was a beautiful structure, a combination of Greek and Chinese architecture. Wide stairs lead up to a wide portico, fronted by alabaster columns that supported an almost Chinese looking roof, brightly lacquered in red with hints of green and gold, with curled corners and golden tassels running along the rim.

The courtyard was filled with families, everyone wearing their Sunday robes. Many people carrying swaddled eggs of various sizes, from baseball sized to football sized eggs.

Padir and Miralee, and their five-year-old son Jeson, joined the back of the throng.

"But they can't really believe that a God has been born," Donna said. "I mean, gods aren't born from eggs."

"They are on Lora. The gods aren't what you would call god. Think of them more as a combination of Greek mythology and ancestor worship. Except in this case the gods are their descendants."

Donna snorted. "Yeah, right."

The Doctor pointed. "Look up there."

Donna follow the Doctor's finger to the open portico of the temple. At the top of the wide steps stood a large alabaster altar. On top of the altar, resting on a blue satin cushion, was an egg of solid crystal, larger than Padir's, glowing with a bright golden light from inside. The light moved. Almost squirmed. As if the baby inside was moving.

"Oh, my God!" Donna gaped. She watched as red and orange robed priests fussed around the egg and organized the crowd into a queue. Eventually, each family was allowed to walk up the steps and past the altar, presenting their eggs to the God egg and bowing as they passed through the golden light for the blessing.

"How is that possible?"

"Think of it as a really recessive gene. The Loran's believe that everything evolves; the people, the planet, the gods themselves. The gods are born from the people. And they protect and advise the people. It's a real blessing to Pedir and Merilee that their daughter will be born in the year of a god. Gods are only born about once a century."

The crowd milled around hushed and reverent, yet vibrant with joy and anticipation.

While they talked, the Doctor and Donna watched the procession of families pass the altar.

"Wait a minute..." the Doctor said. "What's happening?" As Donna looked up, the golden light from the God egg sputtered, then went out. Everyone screamed.


	3. Chapter 3

Panic broke out. "Come on!" The Doctor grabbed Donna's hand and ran for the portico.

Bedlam ensued. People cried out in shock and horror as the baby god died in front of them. The priests converged on the altar babbling and not knowing what to do. Everyone seemed reluctant to actually touch the egg.

The Doctor pushed up the stairs past the queue to where Padir and Miralee with their egg and son looked on in horror.

"What happened?" the Doctor asked.

Padir turned despairing eyes to him. "I don't know, it just suddenly went out." Padir's eyes were stark with grief.

"Donna, stay here." The Doctor approached the altar and was stopped by a couple of temple guards.

"Let me pass, I can help." The guards shook their head and herded him back away from the altar. Other temple guards were already forming a cordon around the temple portico, disbanding the queue and encouraging everyone to back away. As they tried to herd the Doctor back towards Donna and Padir's family, the Doctor twisted, sidestepped, ducked and got past them, rushing towards the altar. Outraged, the guards ran after him, they caught him, grabbing his arms none to gently, just as he reached the crowd of priests around the egg.

The Head Priest yelled, "Get him out of here!"

The Doctor studied the egg intently. "Wait! I know what went wrong."

"Silence! Guards, remove him."

Padir stepped forward. "Holiness, this is the Doctor. He helped us with that trouble a few years ago. Please, let him help."

"Padir. You know this man?"

"Yes, sir. He was the one who prevented the catastrophe three years ago."

The High Priest turned back to the Doctor, "And you sir..." He trailed off, the guards were no longer holding the Doctor. The Doctor was intently bent over the God egg, his glasses on the end of his nose his hands clasped conspicuously behind his back, very carefully not touching the egg.

"There's your problem right there," he said, pointing at the darkened egg with a pencil.

The High Priest leaned forward. "What? I don't see anything."

"Right." The Doctor reached forward and pressed one of the crystal facets. The priests jumped forward and grabbed him. "there." A battery compartment popped open on the back of the egg, showing the batteries inside. "Batteries ran down." He turned an accusing glare on the High Priest, who was looking white. "It's a fake."

-

Inside the Temple, in an antechamber to the main atrium, the High Priest paced back and forth, highly agitated. The darkened, fake, god egg sat on the altar which had been moved back inside the atrium to its proper place. Temple Guards guarded the doors. Only the Doctor, Donna and Padir were inside, along with the high priest. Sounds from outside showed that the crowd was still being broken up and herded away. Wails of despair interspersed with emergency sirens as police vehicles and riot control squads arrived.

Donna was looking out of one of the tall, slit, Grecian style windows. "I thought you said they didn't have cars."

"They still have emergency vehicles. Now, your eminence, what are we going to do about this?" he gestured at the dead egg. "Where's the real God egg?"

"I don't know." The priest took off his headdress and wiped his sweaty bald scalp. "I could have sworn that was the real egg. It _was_ the real egg. I placed it on the altar myself at the beginning of the ceremonies."

"How could you tell it was real?" Donna asked.

The High Priest glared at her. "I have cared for the egg ever since it was brought to the temple. The emanations of the god are quite unmistakable. It's not something you can duplicate with heating coils and a light bulb."

"Which means," the Doctor said, "that somehow the egg was switched during the ceremonies." He strode over to the altar, knelt down, and began knocking on the stone panels.

"How could it be?" the High Priest said. He walked over and watched the Doctor. "The egg was being watched the whole time."

The Doctor worked his way around the altar, testing the panels and even running his hands over the top slab. He lay down and slipped a mirror under the two inches of gap where the portable altar didn't quite touch the ground and checked the underside.

"Find anything?" Donna asked.

The Doctor stood up and brushed off his hands. "No. Still." He turned to look at the priest. "Is there anything I should know about this altar? Latches, hidden mechanisms, drawers, compartments?"

The high priest glared at him, then walked over and kicked one of the clawlike feet that the altar stood on, turning it 90°. He pushed down on the corner of the altar top. The altar dipped, the foot clicked, and the entire back panel of the altar sprang open.

"Oh." The Doctor grinned. "Elegant. Simple. I like it."

Inside, the altar was one large space. It was filled with normal household equipment. A spare blue satin cushion, and an upright tea cozy, big enough to cover a large egg. The Doctor pulled up one corner of the cozy and discovered a glass bell underneath, the kind used to keep warmth in, but it was empty. The rest of the goods were nothing more than a spray bottle, a few rags, and a baby blanket. The Doctor swirled around and looked up at the underside of the slab. He studied it, tracing his fingers over the stone. With a grunt he stood back up. "Nothing there. No trap doors, no indication they could have switched it by dropping it down into here.

Hm. Curiouser and curiouser."

"You're enjoying this," Donna accused. She nodded her head at the worried priest and Padir.

"Yes. Sorry. It's a pretty puzzle. Who would want to get their hands on the god egg, your eminence?"

"No one! It's sacrilege that this should happen." The high priest collapsed into a chair.

"Calm yourself," the Doctor said.

"Don't worry." Donna patted his shoulder, trying to comfort him. "We'll figure something out. The Doctor's good at this sort of thing." Donna looked at the Doctor. "What are the other gods likely to do about this?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Hard to say. Who knows how gods think."

Donna looked down at the priest. He looked up at her hopelessly and shook his head, he didn't know.

"Well, in that case, why don't you show us where you normally keep the egg? That's a place to start," Donna said.

—

* * *

_For more stories by this author click on "betawho" at the top of the page._

_Please take a moment to leave a review. Thank you._


	4. Chapter 4

The Doctor bent down. "Now this is interesting." They were in, what for all intents and purposes, was a badly imagined, bachelor's version of what a nursery should look like. Pastel greens and yellows, lots of natural sunshine, prints of mythological god scenes on the walls. And a changing table with a blue satin cushion on top, where the egg had obviously rested. The Doctor was examining the cushion with a large magnifying glass.

"Donna, look at this." The Doctor dragged his finger over the tabletop and held it up under the magnifying glass for her to examine.

"Crystal dust."

"Not just dust. Shards." He rubbed his fingers together, studying the texture. He turned to the high priest. "The egg wasn't showing any evidence of hatching, was it?"

The high priest shook his head. "We would never have allowed it to travel for all the blessing ceremonies otherwise."

"Uhm. Thought not." he kept rubbing his fingers together.

"But that egg was even bigger than Padir's. Surely it would hatch soon." Donna turned to Padir.

Padir shook his head. "It's possible. But god babies have always been larger and more developed than normal babies."

"Remember Hermes and Hercules," the Doctor muttered under his breath to Donna.

"Who, besides you," the Doctor asked, "has had access to this room, your eminence?"

"Just the priests chosen to care for the egg."

The Doctor pocketed his magnifying glass. "I'll need to talk to them."

—

The priest sat meekly in the chair, clad in the traditional flame orange robes.

The High Priest nodded. "Yoshef, this is the Doctor. He's helping us conduct this investigation."

The Doctor leaned against the mantel. "Now Yoshef, did you notice anything unusual about the egg before or during the service?"

"No sir. We did have to change out the cushion, when the heating element went out of the first one. But nothing other than that."

The Doctor nodded. "Yes, so the others mentioned. Were you aware that someone had been tampering with the egg before the ceremony?"

"What! No sir."

The Doctor nodded down at the priest's hand. "Nasty looking burn you've got there." A perfectly straight burn ran along the edge of the priest's index finger.

The Doctor planted himself in front of Yoshef, arms crossed and looking stern. "Now, what I think happened is this. You switched out the cushion. But you also switched out the egg, while the others weren't looking, hiding it in the bell jar and exchanging it for the fake egg. Then when all the hubbub started, you made sure you helped bring the altar back in here. When the others went back outside to calm the crowd, you retrieved the egg, swaddled it up and smuggled it outside. In all the confusion you handed it off to a confederate and she simply walked out with it. Like any other mother with an egg. Am I right?"

Yoshef looked around, noting the two temple guards who stood inside the door, the High Priest, Padir, and Donna watching around the sides of the room.

The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and swiped it quickly over the priest's hands. At the tip of his burnt finger a splinter of crystal glinted blue. The priest jumped.

"Hah! Crystal resonates under sonic stimulation. Grab him!"

The priest burst up out of his chair, knocking the Doctor down with an elbow. The temple guards lunged for him from the doorway and he scrambled across the room. Padir and the High Priest yelled, the guards drew their weapons, and the priest grabbed Donna and shoved her at the guards. They all went down in a heap. The priest jumped out of the slender Greek window and pelted down the portico steps outside.

They could hear his running footsteps and the yells of other Temple guards. After a moment there was silence. The Doctor leaned on his elbows and looked around at his tumbled companions.

The head Temple Guard appeared in the doorway. "He got away."

"Good." The Doctor stood up and brushed himself off. He held out a hand to help up Donna and the High Priest. "Were the plains clothes guards in position?"

"Yes. They're following and will report where he goes to ground."


	5. Chapter 5

"It looks like Adipose Industries," Donna said.

"It does, a bit. Makes sense really, same sort of business."

They looked up at the ergonomic skyscraper. The street was covered in grass here, small trees lined the curb, and a huge stadium stood across the street, a cross between a football stadium and a Colosseum.

"So why does it fall to us to get inside?"

"Because I asked the High Priest very nicely. I told him we had some experience at this sort of thing. Besides, we can't have Temple Guards crashing in, it'd cause chaos. And we're still not sure where the egg is."

"So what are we going to do? Hide out in the loo again?"

"Of course not. We're going to steal some lab coats."

Donna rolled her eyes.

In the end they did end up stealing lab coats and hiding in the bathroom. But just for a minute as a very agitated Yoshef came striding down the hallway talking urgently to a couple of men in business suits. It was a very weird sensation to be hiding in the women's bathroom with the Doctor. Fortunately, they were deep in the building by then and it was starting to empty out as people left for the day.

"This is getting to be a habit," the Doctor said, as they poked their heads out of the door to check the hall. They squeezed out into the hallway and shuffled nonchalantly down it in the direction Yoshef had been coming from.

They found a likely looking door with a security card lock. It refused to yield to the sonic screwdriver.

"Why isn't it working?"

"Don't know." He ran the screwdriver over the edge of the box, then whacked the edge with his hand. The cover popped open. "Ah Hah! Chemlock!"

Inside, instead of the usual electronics, was an array of colored velvet pads, like the inside of a compact. The Doctor patted his pockets and looked around. He leaned over and sniffed at Donna's neck.

"Oi!" She jumped back.

"Do you still have any of that perfume?"

She glared at him but rummaged in her back pocket and pulled out a small spritzer.

"Excellent!" The Doctor spritzed his finger, "Just need a bit of alkali." He leaned forward and studied the pads, "Right, there." He traced his finger over two of the pads, connecting them. The door clicked opened. "Voila!"

"Perfume locks?" Donna said in disbelief.

"The doorcards here don't work on magnetic strips but on chemical strips. Now, let's see what we have here."

—

Inside was a small office. Four desks, computers and pictures of DNA helixes on the walls. Ball and stick constructions of helixes sat on each of the desks.

"Now that's interesting." The Doctor slipped his glasses on and bent over, studying one of the constructions. "Look at that!" he pointed to a knob in the middle of the model.

"It's Tinkertoys, Doctor." Donna groused. "Can we please get on with it?" She studied the room for another way out, but there was no other door and no windows. It's amazing how fast you started looking for the exits when you traveled with the Doctor.

The Doctor was busy with the sonic screwdriver, and that superfast typing he could do when he wanted, his fingers moving so fast she literally couldn't see them. He stopped the cascade of images and clipped a stylized butterfly clip to a small metal tab that stuck out the side of the computer.

He noticed Donna's look of inquiry. "Evidence for the Temple Police."

"Stealing a god isn't evidence enough?"

"Not with what these people are trying to do." His voice was grim. He zip/scanned through more files while the computer downloaded a massive amount of information. "They've only got until the egg hatches, and that could be any day now. It's here, by the way, two levels down in the security vault."

"So how are we going to get in? If they're short on time they're not going to leave it unguarded. They're probably working on it."

"Right. So we need a distraction." He thought for a moment, watching the files download. "Hah! Yes, there's got to be..." more frantic typing. "Yes! I knew it. Now lets see, they've got... Ooh, that's nasty. That'll work." He typed off a few commands like a concert pianist and the building suddenly went haywire. The Doctor tipped his chair back and plopped his feet on the desk, grinning.

Sirens wailed throughout the building, heavy metal thuds indicated security doors slamming down. Their own door clicked with an ominous deadbolt sound and all the computers came on flashing a lurid red and black skull and crossbones. Several different warning messages blared at once, over the intercoms, in the hallways and public spaces, making it almost impossible to understand them.

Donna clamped her hands over her ears. "What did you do!" she yelled.

He yelled back to be heard. "Convinced the computer there'd been a bio-containment breach. Told them they had a plague virus loose in the building. They keep live specimens here for research." He grinned and swiveled in his chair, enjoying the cacophony. "They'll have locked down the building and sealed us all in."

"And that helps how?"

The Doctor slipped the clip off the computer and waved it at her. "I've got the override codes." He grinned.


	6. Chapter 6

"Okay. so tell me again how you have the override codes."

They were standing outside the security vault. It was actually a vault. Huge metal doors and a big turnwheel.

The Doctor stopped sonicing the door and stood up with his hands on his hips. "I don't get it, it's not even deadlocked." He stared at his sonic screwdriver and shook it, as if wondering if it was working. There was no keypad on the door anywhere.

"Keys?"

"No keyholes. No card reader, no keypad, no tumblers, it's not even remotely controlled. How do they get in?"

"Open Sesame?"

The door cracked open. The Doctor stared at her. She shrugged back, just as surprised. The Doctor grabbed her arm and they walked backward, staying behind the door as it swung ponderously open. It was four feet thick. The background shrilling of alarms and automated announcements from upstairs cut out abruptly. A man stepped out of the vault, wearing containment gear, a cross between a spacesuit and medical gear. "I know the police have arrived, I'm on my way to deal with them right now." He had one hand up to his earphone. "Find out what caused it. I know there was no breach, we checked that first. I'll inform them it was a false alarm. Get Ancel to..." He walked off in the opposite direction, still giving orders.

The Doctor and Donna gave each other a relieved look. The door started to swing ponderously closed. They nipped around it and into the vault. Three medical men and Yoshef stood around a medical table where the egg lay.

"Ah," the Doctor said, "awkward."

Suddenly, he jumped forward, grabbed the egg, and pelted back through the closing door, clutching the egg like a rugby runner. Donna stared after him, stared at the stunned medical men, then abruptly followed him.

He was halfway down the corridor outside. She sprinted to catch up. He stopped at a corner, just before losing her and nodded her to precede him. She ran past him. "What was _that_?" she demanded over her shoulder as they ran up the stairs.

"Sometimes the direct approach is best."

They made it to the top of the stairs but were stopped by another biohazard shield. The Doctor handed her the egg and quickly tapped in the code. "They must be leaving the shields down just in case." The barrier raised and they burst through the door beyond into an upper hallway. They could hear pursuing footsteps below.

"This way!" he yelled.

Police lights flashed through the exterior windows. "Can't we just give this thing to the police?" Donna huffed as she cradled the egg to her chest and followed.

The Doctor careened around another corner.

"They're here!" yelled a medisuited man halfway down the hall. He held out his hand and shot fire out of his palm.

"Whoa!" The Doctor skidded and reversed course. "I don't think they'll let us do that!" They ran back down the corridor.

"You didn't tell me they could shoot fire out of their hands!"

"They can't!" The Doctor shot around a corner, then grabbed Donna as she passed and yanked her into an elevator.

The doors closed and silence descended, broken only by the placid elevator music. They panted and leaned against the walls.

"They must be further along in their research than I expected. They've apparently had some success."

"But. How?"

"Gene grafting. It's not hard, even your people are starting to do it."

"Oi!"

"How's the egg?"

Donna leaned the egg back and studied it. It was still crystalline, glowing gold, more agitated now than when they'd seen it at the temple. "Seems okay."

"Right. One, we need to get out of the building. Two, we can't get out of the building."

The elevator dinged and the doors opened. "Top floor, mystery, mayhem, and medical madmen."

"I thought that was you," Donna muttered.

"Come on."


	7. Chapter 7

"I can't believe we're right back where we started from. How did you know there was a security elevator on the top floor?" She laid the egg back on the table they'd just stolen it from. The heavy vault door was closed. "What if they seal us in?"

"They can't. That's why we couldn't get in. Build a completely impenetrable front door, then put in a slightly less impenetrable elevator at the back. I noticed it when we were here earlier. I told you those codes would come in handy."

"You were only in here for two seconds!"

"Yeah, well. Best place to be right now. They won't be looking for us here. Now. Let's take a closer look at this egg shall we?"

He looked around the gleaming white, well stocked lab. He found a small, high speed drill and held it up for her inspection.

"Here now! What are you going to do with that?" She leaned protectively over the egg.

"Oh don't be ridiculous. I bet this is what Yoshef used that got him that burn on the hand. Look." He set the drill aside and pulled down a large lighted magnifying glass on a arm over the table. "See, right there."

A tiny dent appeared at the juncture of three of the crystal facets. "They were trying to drill in for a cell sample."

"What for?"

"The Philosopher's Stone."

"What has Harry Potter got to do with it?"

"No. The Philosopher's Stone. The search, on Earth, was always for immortality. Here, on Lora, it's for godhood. They're trying to isolate the God gene and that," he gestured at the egg, "is the Philosopher's Stone. The only living source of the gene."

"That's horrible."

"And mad. Think about it. To commit this sort of sacrilege on a world where you _know _the gods are watching?"

"So why aren't they helping?"

"Dunno. Maybe it's more fun to watch?"

"What I don't understand is why all the rush? You keep saying they haven't got time. But surely it would be easier to get a sample once the baby is born?"

"Won't work. The baby is only physical while it's in the egg. As soon as it's hatched it will ascend into Oversight."

"Oversight?"

"A sort of dimensional field that surrounds the planet. You've seen those pictures of the Earth's magnetic field? It's like that. Their only chance is while it's still in the egg. But if they manage to kill a god in the process..."

Donna looked down at the egg.

There was a clang outside. The sound of security barriers opening all over the building. "I think it's time we got out of here."


	8. Chapter 8

"You sure this is going to work?"

"Of course it will work. All the ground floor doors are guarded. No one is expecting us to get out this way." This way, was an eight foot tall glass panel, one in a series that made up this office wall looking out on a veranda and park. There was a plunger stuck to the middle of it, that the Doctor had nicked from a janitor's closet. He was running the sonic screwdriver along the edge of the glass, around the frame.

"What about alarms?"

"I disconnected them. Here we go." He gently kicked the glass panel loose with the toe of one trainer, grabbed the plunger like a handle and walked the glass open like a door. Donna ducked out behind him onto the veranda, he continued turning, sliding the glass panel sideways and replacing it perfectly in its frame, backward. He unsealed the plunger and tossed it into a garbage bin.

"They'll never figure it out." He grinned. "Now we've got to get that thing back to the temple." He grabbed her hand and ran.

They emerged onto the street in front of the building and sauntered across casually, as if they were just a family on an outing. Donna cradled the egg, zipped into a pastel spandex egg cover they'd found in the lab, to block its glow. The Doctor walked alongside her with one arm behind her back, keeping an eye out for trouble.

They crossed the grassed street toward the sports stadium/amphitheater.

"Sir, ma'am. May I see your egg, please." An orange robed priest stopped them in the street.

Donna started to hand over the egg but the Doctor's touch on her arm stopped her. "What's this about?" the Doctor asked, playacting the concerned father. Donna looked up at him, weren't the priests their allies? He gave her the tiniest little headshake.

"Since the God Egg was stolen the Temple is conducting a search, we are checking all eggs past the third trimester."

He reached out toward the egg cover and Donna twisted the egg aside, shielding it with her body. "Watch it, you. She's already overdue. We don't need you jostling her!" she yelled, staying in character.

The Doctor was sidling them all toward the stadium entrance. "You'll have to forgive my wife. She tends to get a little tetchy at time's like this." he said, giving the guard a look implying it was a "pregnant wifey" thing.

"I really must insist, sir." The priest whipped out an evil looking needle. It was eight inches long. He lunged toward the egg.

"Run!" The Doctor and Donna ran, the guard's fingers scrabbled for the egg and snagged the zipper. It pulled open as Donna jerked away. Golden light beamed out of the egg cover.

The Doctor and Donna heard him calling for backup as they sprinted through the stadium corridor.

"What's with that needle?" Donna said in horror.

"Sampling needle. They're determined not to lose this chance."

They burst out of the corridor into the light of the stadium field. A shout. "There!" Six more geneticists, also robed as priests, came bursting out of adjacent corridors, two more running up from behind. They all bore the large, wicked looking needles.

"I thought the priests were on our side?"

"Camouflage. Who better to ask about the egg? Run!"

They sprinted out onto the field, but the priests were gaining on them. The Doctor's long legs carried him out in front of Donna as he desperately looked for a way out. Behind him, two more guards burst unexpectedly out of a corridor on their right. They tackled Donna and she went down, clutching the egg. The egg popped out of its cover and rolled away, glinting brightly. The guards all scrambled for the egg. "Oh no you don't!" Donna clambered up and ran, ramming them aside with her shoulder.

The Doctor noticed and started to turn back. "Keep going!" Donna yelled as she scooped up the egg. The guards were right on her tail, almost within arms reach. She glanced at them out of the corner of her eye. "Go long!"

"What? Donna, no!" The Doctor started running, eyes wide, as Donna threw the egg. A classic American football throw. The egg glinted and shone, flying through the air. The Doctor ran forward arms outstretched, and caught it.

He hugged the egg to his stomach and stumbled, but kept running to maintain his balance.

Behind him Donna cried out as one of the guards grabbed her by the hair. She fell and he pinned her to the ground with one knee in her back and covered her with his sampling needle. "Go!" she yelled as she saw the Doctor hesitate.

The other seven guards rushed forward, needles glinting in the sun. Regretfully the Doctor turned, and ran.

CRACK!

The guards were yelling behind him, their footfalls sounding in his ears as he ran across the grass toward the goal posts and the exit corridor beyond. But all that faded into the background as he looked down and saw the shining crack that had appeared in the side of the egg. Another crack appeared and he stumbled to a halt, awed. He watched in disbelief as it shattered and the pieces fell away.

A shining golden baby looked up from his hands. A metallic golden cherub. The baby floated up out of the crystal shards. It hugged the Doctor around the neck in delight, then saw the geneticists charging forward behind him. It frowned a stern little, newborn baby god frown, and waved a pudgy little hand. The geneticists all suddenly stumbled and ran right out of their shoes. Their feet had turned into knobs. They couldn't stand up.

The baby grinned. The Doctor grinned back. Donna stared in amazement from where the geneticist had pushed her down. The baby kissed the Doctor's head in benediction and floated up, becoming less metallic gold, and more ephemeral, gold light. The "clouds" parted and revealed a mature golden father god, massive in the sky over the stadium. It smiled at the Doctor and Donna and opened its arms to its "child." The last thing they saw was the baby god, in its new father's arms, one arm around daddy's neck, waving cheerfully to them. The Father god bowed in thanks. And the clouds closed over them. The clouds glowed a golden glow for a minute then it faded to normal sunlight.

The temple guards arrived and rounded up the geneticists. And their shoes.

—

The Doctor and Donna walked back through Padir's neighborhood, hands in pockets, studying the sky.

"Well, that's all taken care of. The High Priest has the geneticists and the evidence, the gods are in their heaven, and all's right with the world." He turned a circle holding his arms out to the world in question.

Donna noticed they were passing Padir's house. "Don't you want to stay and see Pedir's daughter born?"

"Nah. I don't think anything can beat the birth we've already seen today. Can you?"

She smiled at his smug delight. "No." She locked her hands behind her back and looked up at him slyly. "So," she drawled and gave him a big grin. "How does it feel to be a godfather?"

THE END

—

* * *

_For more stories by this author click on "betawho" at the top of the page._

_Please take a moment to leave a review. Thank you._


End file.
